“He and I, thou wouldst say, were two lamps which in unison shone;
One lamp burneth still, but alas! for the other is gone!”

Colophon of the oldest MS. of the Ta'ríkh-i-Jahán-gushá in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, dated A.H. 689 (A.D. 1290)
To face p. 66

The following chronogram on his death was composed by Ṣadru'd-Dín 'Alí, the son of Naṣíru'd-Dín of Ṭús: * <text in Arabic script omitted>

The Ta'ríkh-i-Waṣṣáf was intended, as its author informs us, to be a continuation of the above-mentioned his- Ta'ríkh-iWaṣṣáf tory, and may therefore most conveniently be mentioned next, although it is of slightly later date than the Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh, of which we shall next speak. Its proper title is Tajziyatu'l-Amṣár wa Tazjiyatu'l-A'ṣár (the “Allotment of Lands and Propulsion of Ages”), and its author, though commonly known simply as Waṣṣáf (the “Panegyrist”) or Waṣṣáf-i-Ḥaḍrat (the “Court Panegyrist”), was properly named 'Abdu'lláh ibn Faḍlu'lláh of Shíráz. He was employed in the collection of revenue for the Mongol Government, and was a protégé of the great minister Rashídu'd-Dín, who presented him and his book to Dr Rieu's estimate of its merits and defects Úljáytú, as he himself relates, * at Sulṭániyya on June 1, A.D. 1312. His history, as Rieu well says, * “contains an authentic contemporary record of an important period, but its undoubted value is in some degree diminished by the want of method in its arrangement, and still more by the highly artificial character and tedious redundance of its style. It was unfortunately set up as a model, and has exercised a baneful influence on the later historical compositions in Persia.” That these criticisms are fully justified will be denied by no one who has occasion to use the work, and indeed the author himself declares that to write in the grand style was his primary object, and that the historical events which he records served merely as the material on which he might embroider the fine flowers of his exuberant rhetoric. Úljáytú, we are told, was unable to understand the passages read aloud to him by the author on the occasion of his audience; and the reader who is not a Persian scholar may form some idea of his pompous, florid and inflated style from the German translation of the first volume published with the text by Hammer in 1856. We could forgive the author more readily if his work were less valuable as an original authority on the period (1257-1328) of which it treats, but in fact it is as important as it is unreadable. It comprises five volumes, of which the contents are summarily stated by Rieu (op. cit., pp. 162-3), and there is, besides the partial edition of Hammer mentioned above, an excellent lithographed edition of the whole, published at Bombay in Rajab, 1269 (April, 1853).

Here, perhaps, mention should be made of a quasi-historical work similar in style but far inferior in value Mu'jam fí Áthári Mulúki'l'Ajam to that just mentioned, I mean the Mu'jam fí Áthári Mulúki'l-'Ajam, a highly rhetorical account of the ancient Kings of Persia down to Sásánian times, written by Faḍlu'lláh al-Ḥusayní and dedicated to Nuṣratu'd-Dín Aḥmad b. Yúsuf-sháh, Atábek of Lur-i-Buzurg, who reigned from 1296 to about 1330. This book, which is vastly inferior to the other histories mentioned in this chapter, has been lithographed at Ṭihrán, and manuscripts of it are to be found in most large Oriental libraries.*

We now come to the great Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh, or “Compendium of Histories,” of which incidental mention The Jámi'u'tTawáríkh has been made in the last chapter in connection with its illustrious author Rashídu'd-Dín Faḍlu'lláh, equally eminent as a physician, a statesman, a historian, and a public benefactor. Of his public career and tragic fate we have already spoken, but something more must be said not only of the scope and contents of his history, but of his private life and literary activity. His history, unfortunately, has never yet been published in its entirety, and manuscripts of it are comparatively rare, but amongst the published portions is his life of Quatremère's critical account of the author Húlágú Khán, edited by Quatremère at Paris in 1836, with a French translation and many valuable notes, under the title of Histoire des Mongols de la Perse, écrite en persan par Raschid-eldin, publiée, traduite en français, accompagnée de notes et d'un mémoire sur la vie et les ouvrages de l'auteur. From this excellent memoir, to which those who desire fuller and more detailed information are referred, the following salient facts of Rashídu'd-Dín's life and works are chiefly taken. He His birth in 1247 was born at Hamadán about A.D. 1247, and was asserted by his enemies to have been of Jewish origin. His grandfather Muwaffaqu'd-Dawla 'Alí was, with the astronomer Naṣíru'd-Dín Ṭúsí and Ra'ísu'd-Dawla, an unwilling guest of the Assassins of Alamút when that place was taken by Húlágú in the very year of our author's birth, and was at once received into Húlágú's service. As court-physician Rashídu'd-Dín enjoyed considerable influence and honour during the reign of Abáqá, but it was in the reign of Gházán, whose accession took place in A.D. 1295, that his many merits were first fully recognized, and He becomes Prime Minister to Gházán in 1298 three years later, on the dismissal and execution of the prime minister Ṣadru'd-Dín Zanjání, called Ṣadr-i-Jahán, he was chosen by Gházán, conjointly with Sa'du'd-Dín, to succeed him. In A.D. 1303 Rashídu'd-Din accompanied Gházán as Arabic secretary in the campaign against the Syrians, and it was during this period, while the Mongol court was established at 'Ána on the Euphrates, that he presented to Gházán the author of the Ta'ríkh-i-Waṣṣáf, as has been already mentioned (p. 42), on March 3, 1303.

During the reign of Úljáytú (or Khudá-banda) Rashídu'd-Dín enjoyed the same high position as under his predecessor,

Continued power and increased honour under Khudá-banda and received from the new king several singular marks of favour and confidence. He also built in Sulṭániyya, the new capital, a fine suburb, named after him Rashídiyya, containing a magnificent mosque, a college, a hospital and other public buildings, and some thousand houses. In December, 1307, he was instrumental in establishing the innocence of two Sháfi'ite doctors of Baghdád, Shihábu'd-Dín Suhrawardí and Jamálu'd-Dín, who had been accused of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Egypt. Some two years later he He founds and endows the suburb called Rab'-i-Rashídí built another beautiful little suburb, near Gházá-niyya, the town which had grown up round Gházán's mausoleum, to the East of Tabríz, and, at great expense, brought thither the river Saráw-rúd through channels hewn in the solid rock. Immense sums of money were required for these and other admirable works of piety and public utility, but Rashídu'd-Dín, as he himself declares, had received from the generous Úljáytú such sums as no previous sovereign had ever bestowed on minister or courtier. On the transcription, binding, maps and illustrations of his numerous literary works he had, according to the Ta'ríkh-i-Waṣṣáf, expended no less a sum than 60,000 dínárs (£36,000).

Early in the year 1312 Rashídu'd-Dín's colleague Sa'du'd-Dín of Sáwa fell from power and was put to death, the prime Rivalries and intrigues mover in the intrigue of which he was the victim being the clever and unscrupulous 'Alí-sháh, who at once succeeded the dead minister in his office. Soon afterwards a dangerous intrigue was directed against Rashídu'd-Dín, but happily it recoiled on its authors and left him unscathed. Whether he, on the other hand, was responsible for the barbarous execution of Sayyid Táju'd-Dín, the Naqíbu'l-Ashráf, or “Dean of the Sharífs” (i.e. the descendants of 'Alí) is a doubtful question, which Quatremère answers in the negative.